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Bottle Prep

I'm going back to work this week part-time. My MIL is watching my son. He's very inconsistent in the amounts he'll eat per feeding - sometimes he'll just eat 1-2 ounces, other times he eats 3-4 ounces. What is the best way to prepare bottles for my mother in law so that I do not waste my milk by preparing large bottles that he doesn't finish (I'd also like her to not have to heat up additional milk in the middle of a feeding, so I don't want to make the bottles too small...)

Re: Bottle Prep

It sounds like your baby is taking bottles in just the same way as baby would at the breast, in varying (but small) amounts - which is great, because you want to replicate with the bottle what baby is doing at the breast. So one way to prepare the bottles is to leave varying sizes - for example, you could have leave a mix of 1, 2 and 3 oz - so if baby has recently eaten, your MIL can start with a smaller bottle, but still have the option of giving more; or if he's just woken from a long nap and she thinks he'll be hungry, she can offer a 3 oz bottle, with another 1 oz available if needed. Also if, for example, she offers a 3 oz bottle but he only drinks 2, it's fine to stick it back in the fridge and give him the rest later. Here are some links about bottle-feeding the breastfed baby, including some stuff you can print out and give to your MIL for reference: